Gifting Unconditional Love
by Desiree de Angelise

"Your children are not your children. They are the
sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself."
Thus, begins Kahlil Gibran's comments on "Children"
from his book "The Prophet". Are you familiar with that
glorious writing? I hope so. I still remember my
first reading and how years later at my son's and
daughter's christening I included Gibran's "Children,"
my poem honoring their uniqueness, and a minister's
reading that each night a child is born is a "holy night."
I think we all need to say "Yes!" and claim being
"the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself"
for no matter what age we are all children at heart.

When I think of preparing children for the future I
think of those ideas and would include the well-known
Thoreau quote, "If you have built your castles in the
air, your work need not be lost. That is where they
should be. Now put the foundations under them."

If I could I would give the magic wand of unconditional
love in preparation for the future to each child
(and everyone else on the planet)! My own childhood
included that. My playmate's father, Jay Sehorn, now
understood as a part of my soul family, gifted me with
that amazingly special energy and feeling, even "joy
in my very being." In small and larger actions Jay
offered affirmation and love until his early death.

This many years later I am still awestruck by the
magnitude of that gift as I daily realize what a truly
magic wand unconditional love is. Through that gift,
which in the receiving then flows out through you
to others, both you and the world you see and live in is
forever different. Mirroring unconditional love
is inherent in the gift, so given that truth, it is now
my specific intention to extend personal mirroring to
include my written words and their suggested thoughts
as my offering to each of you.

With the wave of that wand your eyes see not
a separated world; instead, they behold a world
of connection, an energy and feeling of being
"golden and cherished", affirming you and others.
They also have the ability to see and celebrate that
specialness that is each person's to live and give.
A versus world becomes win/win with oneness
as its foundation. Oneness has never meant sameness;
it has always meant an honoring of each part
as well as the whole.

Recently, while watching "My Fair Lady", I noticed a
scene expressing what I mean by honoring.
This scene shows the heroine confronting the
behavior of the professor in contrast to his
partner who she says treated her like a lady
before she spoke or acted like one.
Defending himself, he insists he treats all equally -
the lady like the guttersnipe. For far too long
we have accepted the professor's version of "equality",
and not that of the other teacher.
Like unconditional love, the other one uses "equality" in
an honoring and uplifting sense
rather than a leveling one.

We need to honor our children, ourselves and each other
in preparation for the future we desire. 12-Step
programs express the idea that craziness is continuing
the same actions, behaviors, and patterns while
expecting a different ending or outcome. In much the
same way, treating our children, ourselves and each
other without honoring each guarantees an "old" future,
not the one of promise we want for our children.

"Everything is an opportunity to learn to love yourself
more" is something I learned from an Alan Cohen book.
If this is true then unconditional love is even more
critical to our well-being and that of our children.
"Opportunities," especially those in negative guise,
loom larger without the self-esteem and sense of self
inherent in unconditional love. And since life is
filled with those opportunities, preparing our children
for the future needs to include gifting and working
with that special energy. With that foundation we can
more graciously accept the opportunities and release
their energy rather than getting trapped in negative
energies and the past.

Unconditional love seems to include a timeless present,
a being in the Now, no matter when or where it
is or was received. Forgiveness, our own and that of
others also seems connected with it. Unconditional love
honors the essence, the being of each; forgiveness
offers the possibility of staying in or returning
to alignment and not getting caught in past actions
and energies.

If forgiveness does offer us the possibility of
staying in or returning to alignment, maybe we need to
re-examine it. What if Jeshua/Jesus' "Father, forgive
them..." was actually meant to show us about energy.
It might be that the only way he could stay in his own
aligned energy and not get trapped in energy ties with
those who abused him was to immediately forgive them.
Could those words have really been his demonstration
of his understanding and Mastery of energy? And even if
we missed that, he left us the "70 times 7" teaching
and answer to how many times we need to forgive.
Unfortunately, most of us have seen forgiveness not in
terms of energy, but in terms of the deservingness or
lack thereof of the person or action.

In preparation for the future we desire I think we
need to truly understand ourselves and share with our
children that forgiveness is solely, completely, about
energy. It is about not taking on any misqualified or
out of alignment energy. Forgiveness of ourselves and
others frees us to be in alignment, in the present or
Now of timelessness. It matters not what has been done
or by whom. Forgiveness appears to be our way,
our only way,to release and return old energy
and being back into alignment with God energy.
It is that important!

Our lives today eloquently speak this truth as each of
us, especially recently, have had to face whatever is
coming into our lives in order to be acknowledged,
released and transmuted. Will we re-act to this or will
we be able to see it, however difficult, as Love's
offering to each of us? If we see the latter, we have
a possibility of a future in aligned energy, a true
"New Millennium".

We need to accept the magic wand of unconditional love -
meaning we see the essence and don't judge
ourselves or each other. Discernment is not judgement,
and in order to create the desired future we need to
use discernment as an important part of that
foundation. Unconditional love, discernment, and
forgiving ourselves and each other as "the
sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself" that
we truly are offer the best preparation I know of for
creating a desired future for our children and our planet.